The Brooks Review

Author: Ben Brooks

  • Why the iPhone 4 Made AT&T Change Its Pricing

    Stacey Higginbotham:

    But even with the 2GB plan and $10-per-GB overages a video habit over the 3G network is going to cost you, and possibly make you think twice about that download — or upload. That is exactly what AT&T wants — and why it changed its pricing plans for new subscribers as of yesterday.

    I disagree with this statement, first I don’t think AT&T knew the video calling was coming. Second it is still Wi-Fi only so they are not going to make any extra money off of it. Third, I think AT&T is genuinely trying to show its Customers and Apple that it can handle the iPhone traffic so that they have more room for negotiation of extended exclusivity. This is all about limiting traffic for AT&T not about money, if it was about money they would still offer the unlimited data plan for $50 or more dollars a month.

  • Google’s new search index: Caffeine

    Carrie Grimes:

    Our old index had several layers, some of which were refreshed at a faster rate than others; the main layer would update every couple of weeks. To refresh a layer of the old index, we would analyze the entire web, which meant there was a significant delay between when we found a page and made it available to you.

    With Caffeine, we analyze the web in small portions and update our search index on a continuous basis, globally. As we find new pages, or new information on existing pages, we can add these straight to the index. That means you can find fresher information than ever before—no matter when or where it was published.

    Take a look at the graphic they have, it is supposed to show how much better the new index is, but to me it just shows how damn complicated it all is. If you can’t draw it – it will break eventually.

  • MobileDL

    This is sweet:

    MobileDL lets you remotely tell your Mac at home to download files. Just leave MobileDL running in the menubar on your home Macintosh and when you’re out and about, use Simplenote on your iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad or any internet-enabled computer to give your computer files to download. Your Mac at home downloads the file, and it’s ready for you when you get home.

  • The Most Expensive and the Coolest Home Theatre in the World

    This is amazing and I am jealous. My only question: why only enough seating for three people? Seems like a waste – and the couch doesn’t look all that comfortable – but maybe that is the jealousy talking.

  • Microsoft’s Web-Based Office Goes Live

    Pretty cool and is way faster for Mac users than it would be to launch Office 2008 for the Mac. I mainly use Apple’s iWork, but for those rare times I need Microsoft Office I am going to be using this I think.

  • BIOS Will Be Dead in Three Years

    Looks like a huge improvement over the old BIOS interfaces – I wonder if this might cause more problems though with the uneducated computer user. I think for most the BIOS is far to ‘scary’ to mess with, whereas this new UEFI framework looks really user friendly. I am all for user friendly, but I am not sure this is a place ‘we’ want to be user friendly.

  • A Scientist Searches for the Truth of UFOs

    Good way to start off the morning.

  • Bye Bye Birdie: Why Twitter is On the Outs

    Interesting point of view on why Twitter may not be long for this world. I would disagree with most of the sentiment which appears to be from someone who does not “get” the service. If you find it overwhelming and you just see what people are eating – you are following the wrong people. Twitter much like Facebook has its idiots and mass-marketers. There are however a select few(thousand) who post insightful and truly interesting stuff daily.

    Twitter may be a short term service, but it is not worthless. There are a lot of good points here, but try to ignore the naive slant making Twitter sound like a useless service – it is unfounded.

  • Twitter Announces New Link Shortener – All Others Become Irrelevant

    The new URL shortener will be ‘t.co’ – which is, well, very short.

  • Facebook chooses Seattle site, by Pike Place Market

    I just quit Facebook, and now they have to move into my backyard…

  • Better Screen, Same Typography

    Khoi Vinh on Apple’s typographic missteps with iOS 4:

    Building a great display for typography without building great typographic tools is a dereliction of duty.

  • Why the Apple iPhone 4 Kills Google’s Android

    Yesterday the latest version of Apple’s iPhone (dubbed iPhone 4) was released at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference in San Francisco. This is a huge leap for iPhones, so the implications for Apple alone are major, however I think the iPhone 4 is going to have the greatest impact on the smartphone market as a whole. This phone is a game changer for everyone: consumers and competitors.

    Last month I posted about the rivalry between Google and Apple – in that post I said:

    Google is running with the open source guys, pushing all the features that users say they want and doing it on a wide range of Android devices. If Apple says that they won’t do it (Flash), Google quickly does it. Google is in a people pleasing mode — a dangerous mode to be in. Instead of doing the normal routine of copying all the good and improving upon the bad, they are copying as little as possible and barely improving upon the bad.

    What I am basically saying is that Google is copying Apple (and poorly so) instead of innovating their product. This is why the iPhone 4 is so damned game changing for Google.

    Since 2007 the major iPhone complaints have been the following (as best I can remember them):

    • No Flash
    • No Copy & Paste
    • No 3G
    • No Multi-tasking
    • No Porno / anything goes apps
    • No Video
    • Poor camera
    • Lacking MMS
    • Headphone jack sucks (remember that recessed jack in the first iPhone?)

    Out of all those complaints Apple has addressed each one with flying colors – with exception of the ‘anything goes app store’ and Flash (which we all know why by now). Google has none of these complaints and really have had none of them from the outset of Android, yet Apple is clearly in the lead – why?

    Google is building software to run on lots of platforms, HTC is building most all of the hardware, Carriers are tweaking the looks of the interface to fit their ‘brands’. Apple is building everything – allowing no one else to tweak their device.

    Polar Opposites

    So why now is it that I think Google has finally been backed into a corner – there is not much left to complain about the iPhone. You either accept the fasted, smallest, crispest phone you can buy (and buy for cheap for that matter) or you buy an Android phone. In other words, there is no compelling reason to buy and Android phone over an Apple phone any longer. If you really want porn or other apps that Apple will not allow into the App Store you can get it all on the web. If you think you need Flash – think again, over 50% of Flash based media sites are making the move to web standards viewable on the iPhone and iPad.

    It will take HTC months if not a year to build a phone that can compete hardware to hardware with the iPhone, and even then would be upgraders will run into another major problem: their contracts. One reason Apple has stuck with AT&T is because AT&T up to this point has been willing to offer upgrades to existing customers, thus allowing current iPhone users to buy the newest iPhone each year with minimal penalty (sometime no penalty).

    I don’t see Verizon or T-Mobile / Sprint being willing to do the same for Android users – meaning if you want the latest and greatest Android device you have to wait 2 years for your contract to expire, or pay up.

    Oh I almost forgot – this whole FaceTime video chat thing. Yeah Android users can already do it over 3G with Fring, but can they initiate when on a regular call, can they flip from camera to camera like on the iPhone? No. Can any user figure out how to do it? No again. People can’t even yell at Apple for creating another closed standard, as they are opening up FaceTime to all as a protocol for Smartphone video calling. Now it makes all handset makers look bad if they don’t use it, after all Apple was first-ish.

    Then as always it comes right back down to marketing. As Gina Tripani of Smarterware says:

    That’s the thing about Apple marketing. They don’t talk about how many gigabytes of memory or how many CPU cycles or how many apps (much). They aim for your heart, and show you how technology can make your life better during its most important moments.

    She is spot on, just watch the iPhone 4 video or this shorter commercial video from Apple and tell me that you don’t see what this video is really telling you. A soldier seeing his unborn child, a deaf couple talking on the phone. This is heartwarming stuff, this isn’t telling you want the phone can do, Apple is telling you what the iPhone 4 can do for YOU.

    Compare and contrast that to this Sprint HTC EVO 4G commercial which is the current king of the mountain for Android phones.

    I know you can see the difference, Sprint/HTC/Google touted the phone be a revolution and told you nothing about what the phone can do for you, it didn’t even really tell you what 4G was or that it is faster. This just said first a lot. Really neat.

    The difference is night and day, if you have been waiting for the iPhone to come to your network or to come to maturity – time to stop waiting. The iPhone 4 is here and you are throwing away your money buying anything else.

    [Updated: 6/9/10 at 8:56 AM] Reader Roger Barnes pointed out an inaccuracy – Sprint does allow their premier customers to upgrade phones every 12 months. Though not everyone can be a Premier customer – it is easy enough to qualify.

  • Apple Pulls Pulse News Reader for iPad From App Store After New York Times Complaint [UPDATED]

    I am really bummed I didn’t buy this before it was pulled. This is just a bunch of legal B.S. that the New York Times is trying to pull. If Apple lets this stand I don’t see how they could justify NOT pulling all the other RSS apps in the App Store. Lame.

    [Updated: 6/8/10 at 1:02 PM] Now back in the store – no explanation as to why just yet.

  • Did Apple’s iPhone 4 Just Kill the Flip?

    Janko Roettgers:

    Speaking of customers, one of Flip’s big selling points has always been its low price point; a dead-simple HD camcorder for less than $200 is hard to beat. However, the new Flip SlideHD costs around $280 for 16GB of memory. Apple announced today that the iPhone 4 will start selling at $199 for 16GB and $299 for 32GB.

    I am in full agreement, the new iPhone is going to crush the Flip, why carry two devices when one can do it all? I always wanted a Flip, but HD video recording and editing on my next phone – well that is just ‘the bees knees’ now isn’t it.

  • 20 most stressed, 20 least stressed counties

    California leads the most stressed with 13 out of 20 counties being in the state. Ouch (though in fairness they probably have the most counties with populations over 25,000 in the U.S.).

  • Safari 5 Extensions

    Directory of extensions for the newly released Safari 5 – some great ones already. To enable extensions go to Preferences > Advanced and check the box that says show Develop menu, then click the newly revealed Develop menu and click on Enable extensions.

  • Cisco Licenses iOS Name To Apple

    That solves that mystery.

  • Foxconn to give Chinese workers another pay raise

    This is on top of the raise that they just got – good for them, they deserve it.

  • Shanghai 1990 vs 2010

    Amazing what 20 years can do to a landscape.

  • Full-body scanner debuts at Omaha airport

    This is going to be one of those pieces of technology where we have to decide whether we want security or privacy. Given 9/11 I am inclined to err on the side of security.